Alphas, omegas, betas. They were all part of the problem. The only one working toward a solution was Cassian.
Turning, Cassian pulled the blade from the trader’s heart and peeked at the omega copies dancing near the bar. They shinnied up and down the gleaming poles, lights decorating their ornamental bodies. Looking back at him blankly, the copies kept their trained smiles fixed like flashing vacancy signs.
He lowered a cloth against his blade to clean. “I am a cultural engineer,” he whispered to himself. “And it is my duty to rid the world of unnecessary clutter.”
For generations, men had feared power. Knowing that it could never be eradicated, they thought they could manage it instead. Cassian laughed at the thought. His thirst not only begged for conquest. He wanted to bask in the glories of history, like the great men before him. Like the men who ruled with elaborate wear and décor. As powerful as he was, he still didn’t have that. Still lived in shit. Still went by the way of his cock.
Mankind was destined to build, destroy, and make new of the mess. They were urged by God to present a new copy of His meaning.
Cassian. Wren. A world built entirely from his genetic coding. That was the obvious next step.
A new tree of life.
For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them.
“When you reach a certain goal, you find you can no longer stop,” Cassian muttered to himself. “You enter into a role different from yourself. Once a man. Now, a god.”
The women stared dumbly as he meandered throughout the space of the club. Tracing his hands across the slick stage, he stopped when he felt the indent of one of the copy’s feet.
“I’ve grown tired of the men,” he said. “They can be put to work, but they always cause trouble.”
The women still didn’t understand. How could they? They were his first set of copies, made purely for men’s pleasure. Their feeble minds could hardly grasp pictures, let alone words.
That was the problem. He’d come to realize the omegas’ minds were necessary for his satisfaction. Mother was growing old. Soon, she would pass. She needed a successor, or he would rule the earth into a solitary pit.
Mother kept his mind ageless. She allowed for the appropriate flow of power. Every decision had been weighted by her suggestions.
“Do any of you listen?” Cassian barked.
“I’m listening,” his mother said. Again, his earpiece rumbled against the cartilage. “Let them please you. You’re so close, darling.”
“I can feel it, mother. But she has been soiled.”
Power coursing through his veins, he relied on her words to paint a picture of the future. “When you rescue her, you can mold a new set of copies.
“The variations are too difficult to get around,” he said, analyzing the dancers’ eyes. A common thread connected them all. Yet, they weren’t the same. A mosaic of abstractions. Wren was a total fluke.
“Just find the girl.”
“When I do, I’ll rip the babes from her womb.”
Cassian tore out the earpiece and lowered his pants. One by one, the omegas fell to their knees. Crawling to the foot of the stage, the women began kneading the limp shaft between his legs. They moaned in automated unison. “Daddy…”
No, they weren’t listening to a word he was saying. They correctly assessed that something was bothering him, but they couldn’t appease him with any new thoughts. Nobody could.
Except perhaps Wren. She might be able to, but he couldn’t count on it. Once he took hold of her again, he’d have to deprogram her for months.
Leaning forward, he let the curious sex dolls seek their milk and cookies. His entrenched pleasure sat dull like rocks at the bottom of a vast flowing river. He shook forward, but ended up feeling worse.
Broken and well nested, Wren would give in to the compulsion to gather new knowledge. If she was anything like his mother, she would come looking for him.
Patiently nurturing his cock onto the kittens’ tongues, he waited for his deflowered empress. The next time she saw him, he’d offer her a seat near his throne.
Chapter Seventeen
“Something isn’t right,” Wren muttered through the tight convulsions that pressed against her bladder. “The babies… something is wrong.”
Her pregnancy issues were her own fault, she thought. They came as punishment for thinking about running away, for thinking about finding Vash and bringing the pack together. Each night, she would wake from terrifying nightmares.